


The Man Who Wasn't There

by Kantayra



Category: Sherlock BBC 2010
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-26
Updated: 2011-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Yesterday, upon the stair,/ I met a man who wasn’t there./ He wasn’t there again today./ I wish, I wish he’d go away...</i> How Lestrade first met Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Wasn't There

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to kallysten for the general beta, and lizzlie for Britpicking. Any remaining mistakes are my own. The title comes from the poem 'Antigonish' by Hughes Mearns.

The first time Lestrade met Sherlock Holmes involved a drugs bust, four transvestite prostitutes, and a corpse deemed dead from a heart attack. There was nothing really significant about that, but Lestrade always found that it was a good way to begin the story. Everyone expected something bizarre and macabre when it came to encountering Sherlock Holmes for the first time.

In truth, it had been a fairly ordinary, although busy, night. Lestrade was working overtime to help with the four transvestite prostitutes, three of whom had been arrested for ganging up on the fourth in Hackney earlier that evening. There was a fair amount of kicking, screaming, protesting innocence, and very painful stilettos.

At the same time, Detective Inspector Dodson had succeeded in busting a local drug dealer, whom he’d been pursuing for months. Dodson’s men had rounded up the dealer, his employees, and all the half-passed-out clientele from Dodson’s successful raid on a local nightclub. The gang boss was in interrogation with Dodson, and the dangerous criminals were mostly locked up by the time Lestrade arrived, but the junkies were still in the queue.

The corpse had actually been brought in the previous week, but it would soon feature prominently.

Amid the general scene of chaos, the prostitute whom Robins had cuffed decided to make a run for it. He hiked up his skirts and had a pretty good go of it, too, before Robins tackled him to the floor with an audible huff, right at the feet of one of the babbling junkies.

“Typical.” The junkie’s ramblings turned to the situation at hand, and he curled a lip at Robins. “The Met can’t even arrest the right hooker.” And then the junkie started giggling to himself in a half-deranged sort of way.

There was nothing that made that particular junkie stand out that night. He was a bit past university age, perhaps, and had the air of a bored, upper-middle-class brat, who thought he was far too good to be there in the first place. Undoubtedly, Daddy would chew the desk sergeant’s head off when he came to pick up his useless waste of an offspring in a few hours. Lestrade had seen it all plenty of times before, so he almost didn’t look twice.

But then a constable came to book Lestrade’s prostitute, and Robins looked like he’d just about had enough and was in danger of losing it with the smug, rich prat, so Lestrade grabbed the kid’s arm and marched him to the front of the queue.

“Come on, then, and shut your mouth.” Lestrade had never had much use for junkies. Why kids these days threw away their lives on coke and ecstasy was beyond him. Not that it was that much of a waste, from what Lestrade had seen of the junkie crowd.

The junkie giggled again, and there was something off-putting about his eyes when he looked at Lestrade. His gaze had a vaguely reptilian feel to it: alien, assessing, and predatory. Lestrade shook his head and blamed the fantastical thought on too much overtime and not enough sleep.

“On the contrary, Detective Inspector, you’re quite right to worry. Don’t let your domestic issues cloud your perfectly good police instincts.” And then the kid bent over and started hacking like he was about to cough up a lung.

Lestrade froze for a second. He hadn’t even let himself dwell on _why_ he’d been working so much overtime lately, so how on earth had some junkie kid known to have a pop at Lestrade’s current rocky situation with Jenny? The next second, Lestrade shook his head. After all, the dedicated police officer with family troubles was a cliché by now; the kid was just trying to fuck with Lestrade’s head, and Lestrade wasn’t so tired yet that he’d allow it.

“Hurry up.” Lestrade jostled the kid, who was coughing a bit less vehemently now, along.

“ _God_ , I need a cigarette!” the kid complained and coughed some more. “Got a spare?”

“No.” Lestrade was trying to quit, of course. The kid did have unfortunate luck with prodding at the open wounds in Lestrade’s psyche. Lestrade had to give him that.

“You’ve got a pack in your inner coat pocket. Benson & Hedges, I’m guessing from your thumb. I just need one.”

Unnerved, Lestrade glanced down at his thumb, saw nothing unusual at all, then patted his pocket to make sure the pack wasn’t visible. It wasn’t.

“How did you—?” Lestrade began in disbelief.

“ _Bo-o-o-oring!_ ” the kid whined in reply, just like every other stuck-up, self-destructive kid Lestrade had ever met.

Lestrade blinked. He really must have been punchy for this kid to be getting to him.

The kid giggled again. “You’re never going to figure it out. No one ever does. Because you’re _all too stupid_!” He shouted this part out at the top of his lungs, so that it rang throughout the entire police station. Then he bent over and started coughing again, this time right into Lestrade’s coat.

“Oh, Christ,” Lestrade said in disgust and pushed the kid off him and onto one of the chairs in the waiting area.

“What do you think, coke or E?” the pretty, brunette desk sergeant smiled at Lestrade as Lestrade brushed off his coat.

“A bit of everything wouldn’t surprise me.” Lestrade’s hand smoothed down his lapel, and he frowned. “And add a charge of pick-pocketing, too.” He stalked over to the kid and retrieved the packet of cigarettes that the kid had palmed.

“Oops,” the kid said, wide-eyed and unrepentant.

“Would you mind?” the desk sergeant asked Lestrade apologetically.

Lestrade glanced from the kid, who was fairly scrawny but quite tall, to the desk sergeant, who was roughly half his size. “Not at all,” he said wearily.

“God, this is dull,” the kid continued to whine as they took his fingerprints. “Pointless, too. I’ll save you some trouble: Just let me go, because tomorrow I won’t exist, anyway.” He yawned and then started smacking his lips, like he’d just noticed a weird taste inside his mouth. Lestrade didn’t even want to know.

“Whatever he’s on,” the desk sergeant joked, “remind me never to try it.”

Lestrade flashed her an appreciative smile, and she fluttered her eyelashes back at him.

“Kill me _now_!” the kid said with blatant disgust. “Dance your pathetic, little mating dance when I don’t have to suffer through it.”

“Hey!” Lestrade twisted the kid’s arm in a way that was mildly, deliberately painful. “That’s enough out of you.”

The kid miraculously did as he was told, but it seemed to be more because he was staring, transfixed, at the bulletin board on the far wall.

“Nutter,” the desk sergeant flirted with Lestrade. “Thanks.”

Lestrade, to his embarrassment, felt his cheeks flushing. She _was_ exceptionally pretty, after all.

The kid had started muttering to himself under his breath by the time Lestrade led him back to one of the over-crowded holding cells. Something involving needing more cocaine and “it’s starting again,” whatever that meant.

“In, you go.” Lestrade stuffed the kid inside and was glad to be rid of him for, well, _ever_. However, there was just _one_ thing that was niggling at the back of Lestrade’s mind. “And how did you know I was a Detective Inspector, anyway?” The Detective part was clear enough, since Lestrade wasn’t in uniform, but one wouldn’t expect a typical Inspector to be booking prostitutes and junkies at a high street police station on a Saturday evening.

An aborted laugh caught in the junkie’s throat. “Shoes,” he said.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. Of course, there was no point trying to get any sense out of a junkie as high as this one.

“And,” the kid leaned against the door to cell, pressing up against it in an almost obscene way, “since you’re not nearly as dim as most of your ilk, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said incredulously, “right.” He turned and began to stalk off.

“Michael Dieter _did_ make it to the dentist last Friday! Check his right inner cheek!” the junkie called after Lestrade.

Lestrade made a rude gesture over his shoulder.

“Not that you’ll listen to me!” the junkie continued to rant. “None of you ever do…”

After that, Lestrade was more than ready to go home and crash on his own bloody sofa for _another_ night.

***

Maybe, if Lestrade had been thinking straight, he would have left it at that. But he and Jenny had another giant row about nothing that morning, and Lestrade’s DCI insisted adamantly that Lestrade take some overdue time off to get his head sorted. So, instead, Lestrade spent his day wondering just how _had_ that junkie kid known that he was a DI the night before.

The kid’s last words were a taunt, yes, but there had been something almost like desperation in them, too. Lestrade thought that maybe he was losing his mind.

Nevertheless, Lestrade looked up Michael Dieter in the police database. DOA, last Friday, heart attack. According to Dieter’s wife, he’d been on his way to his dentist appointment, but the dentist reported that Dieter had never arrived. Had a heart attack en route, then. Simple. Straight-forward. Case closed.

Still, how the bloody hell had the junkie known those details?

 _“Check his right inner cheek!”_ the junkie implored Lestrade.

Lestrade shook his head and thought it through. And, once he did, it was obvious. Something about the DOA must have been on the bulletin board in the booking room, and the kid had decided on a whim to mess with Lestrade some more, because that was what bored, arrogant, rich kids _did_ when they couldn’t find more drugs to put in their bodies. Lestrade almost laughed at himself that he hadn’t figured it out immediately. He really _had_ been working too much.

Still, with nothing to do and Jenny coming home for work within the hour, Lestrade decided to check it out, just to be on the safe side. The same pretty, young desk sergeant was on duty when Lestrade approached the desk, although thankfully no one was there for booking at the moment. Such was the fate of all police work: long stretches where nothing happened, but when something did, it inevitably happened all at once.

“Hi,” Lestrade said with a smile as he approached the desk, “we met last night.”

“Oh, of course,” the desk sergeant smiled back, a little nervously though. Something seemed a bit off. She definitely wasn’t flirting with him like she had the previous night.

“Can I quickly check something with you? There’s something bothering me about my guy from last night.”

The desk sergeant’s lips formed a tight line. “I have to manage the front desk.”

“Well,” Lestrade said lightly, “I doubt it’s going to walk off. I’ll just be a minute.”

The desk sergeant’s eyes flicked nervously to the two constables on duty, but then she nodded very slightly and led Lestrade back to the booking room.

Lestrade had expected to find a flyer or report mentioning Michael Dieter’s death right away. A quick scan of the wall showed nothing, and neither did a more detailed one. “Have some of these been taken down since last night?” Lestrade asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” the desk sergeant insisted, arms crossed firmly over her chest.

Lestrade was starting to get frustrated with the whole matter. “Has the junkie I booked been moved yet?”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” the desk sergeant sounded icy now. “Last night was busy.”

That was a bit of a hit to Lestrade’s ego, that he hadn’t even been _memorable_. “I’ll just have a look in holding, then.”

“I have to get back to my desk,” the desk sergeant protested.

“It’ll be just a minute.” Lestrade didn’t like to pull rank like this, but then he usually didn’t have this much difficulty getting his fellow officers to cooperate.

The desk sergeant reluctantly led Lestrade back to the holding cells. Lestrade recognised a few faces from last night, although it seemed most had moved on. Lestrade’s junkie certainly wasn’t there.

“I’ll have a look at his file, then,” Lestrade requested.

The desk sergeant looked even less pleased at this. “DI Dodson is in charge of the case. I’m sure if you go through him—”

“Do you have the records from last night or not?” Lestrade’s voice may have risen just a bit at the end, but he was rapidly losing patience.

“Of course.” The desk sergeant led him to a room, requested some files, and stood rigidly at the door while Lestrade looked them over.

Something was definitely off about her. She was behaving more like a scared suspect than a police sergeant. Lestrade scanned the files once and found nothing. So he searched through them again and a third time.

“He’s not here,” Lestrade said impatiently.

“That’s everyone who came through last night,” the desk sergeant said and then very deliberately added, “ _sir_.”

“He’s not here,” Lestrade insisted. “Tall, skinny kid. Early 20s, posh accent. Dark hair, blue eyes, and high as a kite. I booked him right here, just last night.”

“A lot of people came through last night,” the desk sergeant sounded like she was parroting an official response. “You must have misremembered.”

Lestrade frowned. “I need copies of all these files.”

The desk sergeant moved to pick them up.

Lestrade stopped her. “I’ll make them myself, thank you. Where’s the photocopier?” Maybe Lestrade was being paranoid, but he was trusting his instincts right now. He’d _seen_ the junkie fingerprinted and booked. There _must_ be a file. So, either it was misfiled, or the desk sergeant was deliberately holding it back from him.

Lestrade copied the files that _were_ still there, just in case more disappeared in the near future. Then he decided to have a look at the surveillance video from last night.

“I’m sorry, Detective Inspector, but there was a technical glitch last night. I’m afraid we don’t have any of those files.”

“Of course not,” Lestrade was getting a creeping sensation about all this.

Lestrade did still have his packet of cigarettes that the kid had nabbed. He had a friend in forensics run the prints, but all that came up were Lestrade’s and an unknown set. Even though Lestrade had stood there while the kid was printed, he somehow wasn’t in the system.

 _“Just let me go,”_ the kid had said, _“because tomorrow I won’t exist, anyway.”_

Lestrade didn’t know how, but it was _true_. The kid didn’t exist today. And that made Lestrade wonder if everything else the kid said was true, too.

Lestrade contacted the mortuary and asked to see Michael Dieter’s corpse. Sure enough, there was a scratch on Dieter’s right inner cheek, of the kind a dentist’s instrument’s would make. Dieter’s dentist had been lying. And the only reason for the dentist to lie was…

Lestrade suddenly had a revelation. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was something huge and beyond his comprehension, and whoever the kid had been last night, he had now slipped completely from between Lestrade’s fingers without a trace.

***

Two weeks later, Michael Dieter’s dentist and wife were arrested for poisoning him. It turned out they had been having an affair and were planning to run off with the insurance money. It had been big enough to make the news, although not quite big enough to get billing over Prince Harry’s latest fashion choices.

Lestrade was working from home, because he and Jenny were starting to work through some things, and one of her demands had been that he arrive home at a regular hour as much as he could. He was still allowed to work at home, though, just so long as he was physically there. Neither of them was particularly happy about the compromise, which was probably a sign that it was a good one.

Jenny was watching some historical romance drama, while Lestrade sat in his chair across the room and typed up reports on his laptop. Just before Jenny’s programme ended, Lestrade received an e-mail:

 _You listened._

The sender name looked like junk spam: oyitiwrnmhimbtt@yahoo.co.uk. Lestrade nearly deleted it as such, until he remembered the last words the junkie had said to him:

 _“Not that you’ll listen to me! None of you ever do…”_

Lestrade glanced up. Jenny had just turned off the television.

“I’m going to bed,” she said with a yawn.

Lestrade nodded. “I’ll be just a minute.”

“Hmm,” Jenny said, looking mildly displeased, but she went anyway.

Lestrade stared at his e-mail some more. He wasn’t what one would call exceptionally computer-literate, but he wasn’t stuck in the Dark Ages, either. He knew a spam fraud when he saw one. He also knew the IT department could track this down first thing tomorrow morning. He _also_ knew that he shouldn’t respond because there were things like viruses and worms out there, and Lestrade didn’t entirely trust himself not to destroy his laptop.

And, in any case, it _had_ to be coincidence.

Didn’t it?

Stupidly – and Lestrade _knew_ it was stupid – he e-mailed back:

 _I did._

Lestrade figured that every single porn spammer on the web now knew that his e-mail address was valid. The IT department was going to _hate_ him in the morning…

And then another e-mail appeared:

 _Mark Redford. Sentencing next week. Innocent. Secretary ran fraud right under his nose. Idiot._

 _Allison Strudwick. Check paint under fingernails. Different brand. Killed elsewhere, *then* dumped in river._

 _David Bingen. Embezzling. Check Bank of England travel itineraries for 17/07/2002, 24/10/2002, 05/12/2002, 30/02/2003, 04/04/2003, 11/05/2003. Probably others._

Lestrade blinked. He was pretty sure this was all a strange dream. Magic e-mail fairies did _not_ pop up and give him tips on ongoing cases. Still half convinced he was dreaming, Lestrade checked the names in Scotland Yard’s records.

Mark Redford was, indeed, up for sentencing next week after having been found guilty on fraud charges. Allison Strudwick had been found dead in the Thames two nights ago. David Bingen wasn’t in the files anywhere.

Lestrade had that weird, creeping sensation running down his spine again. He e-mailed back:

 _Who ARE you?_

There was no response for so long that Lestrade was convinced that he’d scared whoever it was off. And then, over twenty minutes later, seemingly hesitantly if e-mails could be called that, came:

 _No one._

Lestrade replied several times, but nothing he wrote got another response.

***

The IT department couldn’t trace the e-mails. It was a free account set up prior to the provider requiring identification from its users, and the account had only ever been accessed from public computers that were inconveniently – intentionally – scattered all around Greater London.

In the meantime, all three of the leads Lestrade had got from the e-mails panned out. David Bingen was a particular coup, since no one had even known to look into his transactions until Lestrade had received the tip. It was getting Lestrade noticed, and DI’s in several different departments owed him favours now, and Lestrade’s supervisor pulled him over one day to let him know that there was an opening expected in one of the homicide units, and Lestrade was a prime candidate if he wanted the job.

Other tips came from the e-mailer, but only ever when Lestrade was at home. The IT team had said that they might be able to pull off some magic if Lestrade ever could keep the tipster online while they had their equipment set up in the office. Lestrade had even tried, once or twice, to wait it out at work and hope his mysterious source would contact him then. Jenny hadn’t been happy about that.

A part of Lestrade was suspicious about the whole thing. The only way the e-mailer could know about so many crimes was if he were involved directly. There wasn’t even anyone at Scotland Yard who dealt with that many different offenses at the same time. If the e-mailer _was_ the junkie kid Lestrade had met, he certainly hadn’t come across as some sort of criminal mastermind. And some of the cases – like Michael Dieter and Allison Strudwick – hadn’t had any other co-conspirators who _could_ have leaked the information to Lestrade, unless the confessions were false.

Lestrade had been beginning to wonder if he was going paranoid thinking about what had happened with the junkie’s records at booking, but after what happened next, Lestrade knew he wasn’t paranoid _enough_ :

Lestrade was at home working, waiting to see if his anonymous source would contact him that night, while Jenny was staying at her sister’s. When the bang sounded on Lestrade’s door, he started and cautiously checked the peephole.

Somehow, the junkie was both the first person and the last person Lestrade expected to see.

He threw the door open (again, perhaps stupidly), and the junkie stumbled in.

“No good,” the junkie gasped, although he wasn’t looking half so much like a junkie this time. “CCTV outside. He’ll find me soon.”

“Who’ll find you?” Lestrade demanded. “How did you find me?”

The junkie gave Lestrade a particularly disgusted look, like Lestrade was a complete idiot.

“Who are you?” Lestrade demanded instead.

“Not an immediate enemy.” The kid peered out Lestrade’s front curtains before snapping them closed. Apparently, the kid thought that was an acceptable answer.

Lestrade felt a headache coming on. “You’re the one who’s been sending me the e-mails, right?” he demanded. “And what happened to your booking information at the station?”

The junkie rolled his eyes at Lestrade. “Oh, please. Don’t be _tedious_. I can’t stand it when people are tedious.”

“Well,” Lestrade snapped back, “I can’t stand it when criminals barge into my home in the middle of the night and act like they bloody own the place. Now, sit down and answer my questions.” Lestrade said it in his most commanding voice.

The kid didn’t look impressed.

Lestrade wasn’t sure _what_ would have happened then, but there was another knock on his door. This time, it was a booming echo, as if warning Lestrade that if he didn’t open it soon, the door would be broken down.

“And now it’s too late.” The kid flopped back onto Lestrade’s sofa with a despondent sigh.

Lestrade opened the door warily.

A very tall, hefty man in a black suit and carrying an umbrella smiled at Lestrade smarmily. “I believe you’ve found something of ours?” He was flanked by two other Men In Black.

Lestrade eyed them warily. “Just who do you think you are?” he demanded.

“Well, aren’t you…quaint?” The tall man sneered and held up an ID. “I trust this will satisfy you, _Detective Inspector_ Lestrade.” The title sounded like an insult coming from the man’s lips.

Lestrade blinked. There were some forms of government identification that one was vaguely aware must have existed, but had never thought to see in person. The man was holding one of those. His name was left blank. Lestrade supposed that made sense, if the occupation was accurate.

“Now, are you going to let us in, or are we going to have to…?” the tall man waved his hand and let out the worst imitation of a jovial chuckle that Lestrade had ever heard.

With no other options, Lestrade opened the door and thanked heaven that Jenny wasn’t here for all this.

The tall man brushed past Lestrade deliberately, sneered at Lestrade’s living room, and sighed at the sight of the junkie, who was sitting on the sofa with a defiant glare on his face.

“You’re coming with me,” the tall man said calmly.

“Hmm, let me think about that. How about: no?” the junkie smart-mouthed back.

“You’re being juvenile, Sherlock.”

“You’re being overbearing, Mycroft,” the junkie mocked the tall man’s – Mycroft’s – tone perfectly.

“Really, involving _civilians_?” Mycroft snorted. “I would have expected better of you.”

“ _I_ am a civilian, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Sherlock burst to his feet in a sudden fit of violent energy.

Lestrade realised around this point that the situation had got entirely out of his hands. “Look,” he cut in, “he doesn’t seem to want to go,” he pointed to Sherlock, “so unless this is a criminal matter, maybe you should just—”

“Do not,” Mycroft cut in icily, “interfere in matters that don’t concern you, Detective Inspector.”

Lestrade had never felt more threatened in his life. Which, strangely, didn’t stop him from saying, “Don’t concern me? You’re in _my house_!”

Mycroft blinked. “He does have a point there. Come, Sherlock, let’s settle this at home, where it should have _stayed_.”

“I don’t have to go with you,” Sherlock sulked back onto the sofa once more, arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh, I really think you do.” Mycroft raised one gloved hand, and the two men that had been standing inside the door came forward, lifted Sherlock straight off the sofa, and manhandled him outside. Sherlock seemed to droop halfway through the exercise, giving up his struggles. “Have a pleasant evening, Detective Inspector.” Mycroft smiled tightly in Lestrade’s direction and left with them.

Lestrade watched, still somewhat stunned, as they all entered a black government car and drove off. Then, very deliberately, Lestrade slammed his front door shut again.

It was almost too unbelievable to process. Lestrade had so many questions he didn’t even know where to begin. He returned to his armchair and stared blankly at his computer screen for a few minutes, and then decided that he _had_ to know.

Surprisingly, there were over 100 people in the London area named ‘Sherlock’ (including various spelling variations) and nearly 1000 throughout the UK. The worst offender was a woman who went by ‘Sure’Loque,’ but she was from the States, so Lestrade figured he could eliminate her, at least, from the list. ‘Mycroft’ was only a little better.

Lestrade googled ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Mycroft’ together, just out of curiosity. The first thing that popped up was an article including the obituary for Sherrinford Holmes five years back. Lestrade vaguely remembered that; Holmes had been a high-ranking RAF officer and hero, but the rumours around the Yard had been that he was actually a spook, and the whole thing was some kind foreign-affairs assassination. The text that was highlighted for Lestrade from the search read, “survived by his two younger brothers, Mycroft (25) and Sherlock (18).”

A photo showed the youngest brother at the funeral, but he had a hood pulled over his head and was hunched over some electronic device, so that the camera couldn’t see his face. It was hardly appropriate attire for a funeral. The middle brother sat next to him, back ramrod straight, with the same look of superior condescension that he had worn ten minutes ago in Lestrade’s living room, although he was at least fifty pounds heavier in the photo.

“Christ,” Lestrade ran a hand through his hair, “I’m caught in the middle of James Bond’s family feud.”

As soon as he said it, he got an e-mail:

 _And let’s leave it at that, Detective Inspector._

It was a government address.

Lestrade was hardly surprised.

***

Lestrade really had been about to leave it at that. The intelligence connection explained all the oddities, and while Sherlock was obviously caught in a self-destructive spiral, it really _wasn’t_ any of Lestrade’s business.

So that was that, until Lestrade was kidnapped on his way home from work one day.

When the hood was finally pulled back off Lestrade’s head, after a lengthy and confusing car journey, Lestrade found himself in what looked to be an abandoned office building with a pacing, agitated Mycroft Holmes before him.

“It’s all just so _plebeian_ ,” Mycroft said disdainfully, wiping at the sweat at the back of his neck. It didn’t look like Mycroft did something as vigorous as pacing very often, given how flushed he was. “But the alternative is even more unthinkable.”

“If you don’t let me go right now…” Lestrade warned.

“Oh, do stop your prattling,” Mycroft sneered. “Can’t you see this is serious?”

“Abducting a police inspector? Yeah, I’d say that’s serious.”

Mycroft didn’t look remotely intimidated. “I didn’t want to have to do this,” he said almost apologetically, “but Sherlock’s forced my hand, you see. He’s always been a bit of a black sheep, Sherlock. For some unfathomable reason, he’s always refused to go into the family business. It’s devastated Mummy.”

“How…tragic,” Lestrade said with every fiber of sarcasm in his body.

Mycroft seemed to snap to attention at that. “At this point, the options are either to let Sherlock have his way, have him committed, or let him kill himself. The third is inconceivable, the second inconvenient, so I am forced – with great reluctance – to consider the first.”

“Fabulous. That’s just fabulous. You do that, and just leave me out of it, all right?” Lestrade sighed and tugged at the cords that still held his hands.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Mycroft said with false regret. “Sherlock has always had this…hobby, shall we say, with crime. Heaven only knows why. It’s so trivial.” Mycroft snorted with distaste. “ _Sordid_.”

Lestrade didn’t like where this was going.

“So, for the time being, we are going to indulge Sherlock in his little games,” Mycroft concluded. “Sooner or later, he’ll grow tired of it all and return to the family way. Did you know that he was deciphering asymmetric key ciphers when he was only four? It’s such a waste.” Mycroft shook his head sadly.

“I don’t see,” Lestrade said through gritted teeth, “what any of this has to do with me.”

“Don’t be obtuse. Sherlock has already started to approach you with his little theories, although heaven only knows why. But, if it keeps him clean, who am I to complain? All _you_ have to do is keep doing what you’ve been doing. And, of course, report back to me if he turns self-destructive again. You’ll be compensated handsomely, of course.”

“Are you trying to hire me as a nanny for your 23-year-old brother?” Lestrade asked in disbelief.

“Sherlock _needs_ one,” Mycroft said with annoyance. “And I can’t hire one through conventional means.”

“This is ridiculous,” Lestrade said in disgust. “Untie me.”

“Do you think it’s the right thing?” Mycroft wondered aloud. “I do hope I’m not being too permissive…”

“That’s not exactly the first word I’d use to describe you,” Lestrade said in disbelief.

“Right.” Mycroft gestured for another of his Men In Black to untie Lestrade. “It’s all settled, then. And, if anything happens to Sherlock, you _will_ be hearing from me again.”

Lestrade was at least happy to admit that he wanted to avoid _that_ eventuality under any circumstances.

***

Three weeks later, Alan Wilkinson was found dead in his bedroom with the windows shut and the door bolted. His face was contorted into a horrified death-scream.

By the time Lestrade arrived on the scene, Sherlock was already harassing one of the duty sergeants to let him past the police tape. At least he didn’t look high. With a weary sigh, Lestrade waved to the sergeant to let him through.

“No wind. Odd. Can’t see the light in the window from the street clearly. Or can you? Angle from the far roof is about right—” Sherlock was chattering away a mile a minute. Maybe he’d switched to speed.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Lestrade said with a sigh.

It _did_ , however, give him plenty of impetus to stop working such late hours. Jenny was very happy about that. And that, at least, _was_ the (re)beginning of a beautiful relationship.


End file.
